Jewish and Islamic Philosophy - by Lenn E Goodman (Hardcover)

About the Book

The Rhetoric of Midwifery offers new insights into understanding these questions within the context of our present-day medical system.

As a point of departure, Mary M. Lay analyzes the public discussion over non-academically trained-or direct-entry-midwives within Minnesota. From 1991-1995, that state held public hearings about the possible licensing of traditional midwives. Lay focuses on these debates to examine the complex relationships of power, knowledge, and gender within the medical profession.

Lay examines the hearings and provides a framework for appreciating the significance of these debates. She also details the history of midwifery, highlighting ongoing concerns that have surfaced ever since the profession was created, centuries ago.

In the remaining chapters, she focuses on the key testimonies offered during the debates. Capturing the actual testimony of midwives, home-birth parents, nurses, physicians, and attorneys, The Rhetoric of Midwifery reveals how the modern medical profession seeks to claim authority about birth. Lay bolsters her argument by culling from such sources such as historical documents, an internet discussion group, and conversations with modern midwives

Book Synopsis

The Rhetoric of Midwifery offers new insights into understanding these questions within the context of our present-day medical system.

As a point of departure, Mary M. Lay analyzes the public discussion over non-academically trained-or direct-entry-midwives within Minnesota. From 1991-1995, that state held public hearings about the possible licensing of traditional midwives. Lay focuses on these debates to examine the complex relationships of power, knowledge, and gender within the medical profession.

Lay examines the hearings and provides a framework for appreciating the significance of these debates. She also details the history of midwifery, highlighting ongoing concerns that have surfaced ever since the profession was created, centuries ago.

In the remaining chapters, she focuses on the key testimonies offered during the debates. Capturing the actual testimony of midwives, home-birth parents, nurses, physicians, and attorneys, The Rhetoric of Midwifery reveals how the modern medical profession seeks to claim authority about birth. Lay bolsters her argument by culling from such sources such as historical documents, an internet discussion group, and conversations with modern midwives

Review Quotes

Goodman's nearly poetic writing is vivid and accessible beyond narrow professional confines. . . . This work argues forcefully that cross-pollination not only afforded freshness and strengths to the giants of Islamic and Jewish philosophy in 11th and 12th-century Spain, but that it offers the same to us today. Recommended.-- "Choice"

He is without doubt one of the outstanding authors in his field.--Oliver Leaman "Department of Philosophy, Liverpool John Moores University"

Lenn E. Goodman, one of the world's most elegant and prolific students of medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy, argues convincingly that the reason that Jewish authors found so much of Islamic philosophy, pietism, mysticism, jurisprudence and grammar congenial was that Islamic ideas in these fields were rooted in Biblical categories . . . sharpened by Greek analysis [and] rendered vivid by Greek imagery. . . . At its best Goodman's work remains one of that of the Tosafists: an attempt to derive from painstaking textual analysis a glimpse of the broader principles informing these texts. Goodman is a master of rising from details to ever higher levels of abstraction and it is at the highest levels of abstraction that Greek, Muslim, and Jewish thought meet.-- "Jewish History"

Professor Lenn E. Goodman is a philosopher and scholar of world-class stature, whose writings have enhanced the intellectual lives of all who work in his field.--Ian Netton "Department of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Leeds"

About the Author

Lenn E. Goodman is an American philosopher. His philosophy, particularly his constructive work, draws from classical and medieval sources as well as religious texts. Goodman is also an academic, scholar, and a historian with research interest in metaphysics, ethics, and Jewish philosophy.